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Wenger fears for international friendlies future

Arsène Wenger fears that international friendlies may be on
the wane.

The midweek game between England and France was instantly
forgettable except for the milestone of David Beckham's 100th
cap. The Arsenal manager, who commentated on the match for French
television, believed the game lacked edge - and, he argues, it is
increasingly like that in non-competitive fixtures.

"I'm scared that in the modern game, there is no room
any more for friendly internationals," he said. "Not
because countries take our players, just because people will not be
interested in that anymore. There is nothing at stake. People want
to see competitive games.

"Maybe I'm completely wrong but is it in the long term
organisable for people to travel and spend their money to watch
this kind of game? I'm not sure.

"They are slowly starting to cut the number of
international games because they have no meaning any more in the
modern game. People want to see competitive games. You sit here
today and you can't say England were fantastic or France were
fantastic, but straightaway you say 'it was a
friendly'.

"You always felt it was a game with the five per cent
missing between a friendly and a competitive game that makes it
interesting."

However there is certainly one group of people from whom these
games still matter greatly.

"Although the audiences for international football are
dropping a little bit I believe frankly that it means a lot to my
players," said Wenger. "When I speak to them, they want
to do well in the European Championship, they want to do well in
the World Cup. It really matters to them.

"You could see a guy like Beckham. He was ready to die to
get his 100th. If it didn't matter, he would not have done
that. It matters to them but it's a friendly, it's low key,
the guy plays this week knows next week he has a Champions League
game and he doesn't want to miss that game. So subconsciously,
you miss a fraction and that makes a game less
interesting."

Copyright 2015 The Arsenal Football Club plc. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source28 Mar 2008

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